Islamabad (HRNW) — Government documents reveal that over the past five years, telecom companies have been fined a total of Rs 68.9 million for providing substandard services across Pakistan.
The official report highlights that nearly 9,000 mobile sites across the country are suffering from network availability issues. The major causes include prolonged load-shedding, right-of-way disputes, limited access to commercial electricity, theft, and incidents of vandalism, all of which are severely affecting service quality.
The documents further indicate that telecom service standards in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan have dropped to alarming levels. Despite repeated claims by operators, national network availability still does not meet the minimum benchmarks set in their licenses.
In the first half of the current year alone, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) received over 8,000 consumer complaints, successfully resolving 99.17% of them.
Over five years, PTA has issued 39 show-cause notices, 17 warning letters, and has imposed heavy fines on telecom operators for continual violations of service quality standards.
PTA has urged all stakeholders to immediately identify low-service areas so that corrective actions can be taken without delay.
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